Best Slavery Poems

The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
...

The Peace Warrior Of Mzansi, among heroes - a colossus!
Sun Of The Nation; a rare gift of Providence.
Once, entangled in the web of racist succubus;
Unruffled he declares before High Justice:
...

We know who the killers are,
We have watched them strut before us
As proud as sick Mussolinis',
We have watched them strut before us
...

In the stillness of night Wisdom came and stood
By my bed. She gazed upon me like a tender mother
And wiped away my tears, and said : 'I have heard
The cry of your spirit and I am come to comfort it.
...

It is darkest hour in our history,
Dark nights shrouded with mystery,
Keeping under heels and making mockery,
Liberty torch shine but under label of slavery,
...

A green and silent spot, amid the hills,
A small and silent dell ! O'er stiller place
No singing sky-lark ever poised himself.
...

Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl!
And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee,
And let me call Heaven’s blessing on thine eyes,
...

(Dedicated to you, my Brothers and Sisters)

Powerful words,
Truthful words,
...

AS I sat alone, by blue Ontario's shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return'd, and the dead
that return no more,
...

Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
...

Colonialism in its last moments is pushed to the centre stage -
the recoiling phenomenon intensely illuminated
by The Flame Of Liberty.
Roused by the prospect of emancipatory freedom,  
...

COVER thy spacious heavens, Zeus,
With clouds of mist,
And, like the boy who lops
The thistles' heads,
...

Where would we go if told to leave
This land where our kidnapped forefathers grieved
For life as it once were
And not as destiny's mind perceived
...

You that, like a dagger’s thrust,
Have entered my complaining heart,
You that, stronger than a host
Of demons, came, wild yet prepared;
...

When will this thirst for freedom slake?
When will our love of slavery die?
When will our Mother's fetters break?
When will our tribulations cease?
...

The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats through unseen among us, -- visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, --
...

In the world of Saints
...

I was here from the moment of the
Beginning, and here I am still. And
I shall remain here until the end
Of the world, for there is no
...

About a decade had passed
Bertrand Russell had written
Why I Am Not a Christian
In 1957
...

Pour O pour that parting soul in song
O pour it in the sawdust glow of night
Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,
And let the valley carry it along.
...

CALL me not rebel, though { here at every word
{in what I sing
If I no longer hail thee { King and Lord
{ Lord and King
...

something that should have gone out
with the dark ages 'still rages'.

human trafficking and slavery for the almighty dollar
...

I.
As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
...

Those who passed from this door
Were negroes
With centuries-old ethos permeating
Their swarthy bodies.
...

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!
Is't not enough to torture me alone,
But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?
...

The world -
becoming
smaller and smaller
everyday,
...

What is happening all around?
Nothing seems well and sound,
Anarchy, fraud witness and found,
All taking we to down ward bound,
...

'These Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live
A profitable life: some glance along,
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
...

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!
...

Why not live in fool’s paradise?
Whether it is matter of merchandise?
Or be it a sensitive debate to publicize?
No restriction on view’s to exercise
...

I.
She was an aged woman; and the years
Which she had numbered on her toilsome way
...

I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan
To think that a most unambitious slave,
Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne
...

Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
...

To the Memory of the Household It Describes
This Poem is Dedicated by the Author:

"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits,which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine lightof the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the CelestialFire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth thesame." -- Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy,
...

Mr. Cogito never trusted
tricks of the imagination

the piano at the top of the Alps
...

Thousands of words or applause,
Complete silence or mere a pause,
Will do nothing or serve the purpose,
When people not react and suppose,
...

I stand before the sea
and it rolls and rolls in its green blood
saying, 'Do not give up one god
for I have a handful.'
...

Now up and down the siding brown
The great black crows are flyin',
And down below the spur, I know,
...

The word that ignited my incombustile mind,
I raised then the marasmus jowl upward
And opened my sutured mouth.
Eyes were cascading the caged fervour
...

.
I remember, well remember,
.
That dark and dreadful day,
...

DEDICATION

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
...

Am I sadly cast aside,
On misfortune's rugged tide?
Will the world my pains deride
Forever?
...

ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.

SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como.
...

I. Spirit's House
...

Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains
Of one
Who possessed Beauty
...

The birds against the April wind
Flew northward, singing as they flew;
They sang, "The land we leave behind
Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew."
...

'O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our soul's as free
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
...

I.
Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven!-but thou, alas!
Didst never yet one mortal song inspire-
Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was
...

SCARCE had the solemn Sabbath-bell
Ceased quivering in the steeple,
Scarce had the parson to his desk
Walked stately through his people,
...

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing
...

BOOK I

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
...

From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth:
...

My gentle Harp, once more I waken
The sweetness of thy slumbering strain;
In tears our last farewell was taken,
And now in tears we meet again.
...

Scene, on the Cliffs to the Eastward of the Town of
Brighthelmstone in Sussex. Time, a Morning in November, 1792.
...

I SAY whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is
finally right.

...

Thrown to the floor punched, slapped, and bruised
Give me all your stuff is another way to be abused
Being verbally raped with the words that will never be forgiven
Smacked in the face so much you just want to stop livin'
...

At village lived, in days of yore,
A youth bred in Mahomet's lore;
His well-turned limbs were formed with grace,
With blooming beauty glowed his face;
...

The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,
...

Men and boys, O fathers, brothers,
Burst these fetters round you bound.
Women, sisters, wives and mothers,
Lift your faces from the ground!
...

Melissa: I've still rever'd your Order [she is responding to a Parson] as Divine;
And when I see unblemish'd Virtue shine,
When solid Learning, and substantial Sense,
Are joyn'd with unaffected Eloquence;
...

The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
...

so many years.
so many fears.
so many tears.
...

My Fathers sit on benches
their flesh counts every plank
the slats leave dents of darkness
deep in their withered flanks.
...

Lay his sword by his side -- it hath served him too well
Not to rest near his pillow below;
To the last moment true, from his hand ere it fell,
Its point was still turn'd to a flying foe.
...

Upon a bank, easeless with knobs of gold,
Beneath a canopy of noonday smoke,
I saw a measureless Beast, morose and bold,
...

A frail…old Negro lady
…Born…in Lincoln's day
Who knew the taste of freedom
Only… when… she passed …away
...

LARA. [1]

CANTO THE FIRST.
...

Senator, statesman, speaker of the House,
exceptional dancer, slim,
graceful, ugly. Proclaimed, before most, slavery
an evil, broker
...

By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
...

Alas! and am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil and pain!
...

YORKTOWN.
FROM Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still,
Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill:
Who curbs his steed at head of one?
...

"Had we never loved so kindly,
Had we never loved so blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns
...

This is a day of happiness, sweet peace,
And heavenly sunshine; upon which conven'd
In full assembly fair, once more we view,
And hail with voice expressive of the heart,
...

my Freedom, my Freedom
you saved me
you tore my chain
you detached the knots
...

Like the bright lamp, that shone in Kildare's holy fane,
And burn'd through long ages of darkness and storm,
Is the heart that sorrows have frown'd on in vain,
Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm.
...

CXXVII
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
...

Very soon the Yankee teachers
Came down and set up school;
But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it, -
It was agin' their rule.
...

Today,
More than ever before
In our lifetime,
We are facing,
...

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,
...

When amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
...

O! were I one of the Olympian twelve,
Their godships should pass this into law,--
That when a man doth set himself in toil
After some beauty veiled far away,
...

I dreamt a dream at the midnight deep,
When fancies come and go
To vex a man in his soothing sleep
With thoughts of awful woe --
...

Open them, open them
let the light shine,
Release the binds
of chains and twine.
...

"Was I at Eureka?" His figure was drawn to a youthful height,
And a flood of proud recollections made the fire in his grey eyes bright;
With pleasure they lighted and glisten'd, tho' the digger was grizzled and old,
And we gathered about him and listen'd while the tale of Eureka he told.
...

WHEN fallen man from Paradise was driven,
Forth to a world of labour, death, and care;
Still, of his native Eden, bounteous Heaven
...

Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the soil whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?
...

'How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh,
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
...

[As a Tribute of Esteem and Admiration this Poem is inscribed to ROBERT MERRY, Esq. A. M. Member of the Royal Academy at Florence, and Author of the Laurel of Liberty, and the Della Crusca Poems.]


O THOU, to whom superior worth's allied,
...

When first I saw our banner wave
Above the nation's council-hall,
I heard beneath its marble wall
The clanking fetters of the slave!
...

I.

It matters not what place he drew
At first life's mortal breath,
...

If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild ocean's echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there,
...

I was feeling sad and red,
I didn’t know, which way, nation was going.
There were quotas all around,
Communal, caste, gender, language, regional and physical,
...

'O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!
To which those restless souls that ceaselessly
Throng through the human universe, aspire!
...

Remember the Glories of Brien the Brave


Remember the glories of Brien the brave,
...

At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls
The great soft rumble of the course of things --
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, --
...

Is a mickey
All that you need
For liberty?
Drown out sorrow
...

Sing, sweet Harp, oh sing to me
Some song of ancient days,
Whose sounds, in this sad memory,
Long-buried dreams shall raise; --
...

O Mother Race! to thee I bring
This pledge of faith unwavering,
This tribute to thy glory.
...

I.

Dark was the dawn, and o'er the deep
The boist'rous whirlwinds blew;
...

I gave myself freedom from boredom
From the leaves in the garden
To old toys in the garage
I had always been in one touch
...